A while ago I finally caved and purchased a copy of the Deluxe edition of World In Flames. I’ve been contemplating it for some time but the high price had always been enough to deter me. So, while setting up and playing a bit of OCS Tunisia over the last Christmas with my son we came to the conclusion that he very much prefers a strategic level. And while I have Axis and Allies (Risk is not a wargame worth mentioning) I find that far too simplistic and unsatisfying. So I placed my order at the end of the year and waited patiently (refreshing the Aus Post tracking page only twice daily) until it arrived it all its HUGE glory.
So began the process of punching out and sorting the thousands of counters included. This is where I stumbled upon a rather major disappointment. One of the counter sheets came with a large misalignment on its reverse, about a 5cm shift, so the counters are essentially unusable (I wouldn’t have minded a bit of art “bleeding” off the side as I’m used to wargames not always having the best components or quality control. Fortunately (I suppose) they are from the Ships In Flames expansion so I can continue to play just without that option. Plus, I’ll still be able to use what I have to learn the game as long as Japan isn’t used (the unfortunately effected country).
This did, however, get me to thinking about the overall justification within the war games industry (“it’s a niche market and therefor expensive”) for lack of quality control, or just plain quality overall. I’d like to stress that World in Flames is in nearly every aspect excellent quality. But at this price tag it really needs to be! And to further frustrate me, I placed my order just before January and it took a little over 3 MONTHS before I had received everything required to play the game as intended. This wasn’t a pre-order which can take years to fulfill (18xx’ers and wargamers are completely used to this) it was straight from the store “ready to ship” (lol).
A bad taste
For some reason many wargame companies promote the idea that they are just a small family affair, with tight margins to meet, struggling to eke out an existence in an ever shrinking and more competitive market dominated by the likes of GMT. While this may be the true it is still going to irritate when you have to wait over a month for some overly expensive cardboard to arrive only to find out you’ll be waiting for a new package to arrive to fix the issues with the first. If they can’t compete with the big guys try to do something that makes you stand apart from them. Like, throw in a few personal extras when you screw up. I’d have even been happy with a note saying “sorry”. BE the small family company. Don’t try to sell that idea then act all “bottom dollar corporate”. A customer has been waiting 3 months to play your damn game. Something you are presumably proud of that took years of development and even before he’s put counter to map the experience has been soured! FFS this isn’t rocket science.
The “Niche” argument
Of course it’s a damn niche market. It’s so expensive no one in their right mind would shell out that level of money on the possibility that they “may” enjoy the game having digested over 100 pages of rules, and found someone else equally insane to join them.
I’m old enough to remember war games being cheap. Popping into my local hobby store seeing them lined up on shelves like books. A vast array of choice. Actual metal figurines for wargames or DnD waiting to be painted. Somehow these were cheaper than their modern plastic equivalents, which I’ve never fully got my head around.
World in Flames is a BIG game. It is well put together. $150 (AUS) for the classic represents an AMAZING amount of value. $269 for the deluxe (the version I picked up) not so much, but it is still excellent just for the convenience of the mounted maps.
In Closing
I wanted to put a solution or some sort of possible fix. But frankly, as long as companies continue this way I really only see the niche argument becoming more justified unfortunately. It is worth re-iterating that this is not only a problem at Australian Design Group (the creators of the actually rather good World In Flames), but extends across the entire industry to Multi-Man Publishing (of Advanced Squad Leader fame and a company I’ve ranted about in the past) and on.